


Shift

by echoist



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 3.04, Episode Related, Hurt/Comfort, Loyalty, M/M, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 07:37:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoist/pseuds/echoist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott McCall doesn't have a pack (unless you count Stiles, which frankly no one does). He's not an Alpha, either. So why does everyone keep acting as though he is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift

 

 'Can I ask you a favor?'

Scott glances up from his desk, turning around in his swivel chair. He'd figured from the knock that it was his mother, especially at this hour; instead, somewhat perplexingly, it was Isaac. Chilled and soaked to the bone as if he'd been standing in the downpour outside or just – just walking through it for a really long time. He's clutching a worn army duffel in one hand, soaked as well, and for a hesitant moment, Scott's brain entirely shuts down.

Well, the human side, anyway. The wolf wants to know why Derek's beta is here, in his home, without asking for permission. Wants to know what the other wolf wants. Doesn't feel the deep sympathy welling up in Scott's chest as he takes in the sight of him, shivering, shoulders cowed and head ducked low. Isaac sinks to the floor, pressing his back into the space between the wall and the dresser.

'You can ask me for anything,' Scott replies, pushing the wolf beneath the surface and rising to kneel beside Isaac. 'Is this about what happened at school today?'

'Maybe?' Isaac replies. 'I don't - it's more than that. I just, um - ' Isaac begins again, glancing up at the ceiling. 'I might need a place to stay. For a little bit. Or – or just tonight, I don't mean to intrude, or bother you. It's just - the old subway line is flooded, and so is just about every empty building in town, and I -'

'Why aren't you with Derek tonight?' Scott asks, wincing immediately as he realizes that was the worse possible thing he could have said. Isaac's head ducks reflectively, a shudder passing through his entire body as his left arm unconsciously rises to ward something away.

'Hey,' Scott says, cautiously putting his hands on Isaac's shoulders. 'Hey,' a second time, more softly than the first. 'You don't have to tell me, all right? You can stay here as long as you need to.' Isaac lowers his arm and looks at him, sees the honestly in Scott's face. Eventually, he knows, he'll have to leave here too, but for tonight? Maybe he could at least dry off. Maybe here, no one would use his past fears against him, or deliberately rub his nose in them.

'Jesus, man, you're soaking,' Scott remarks as casually as he can. 'Let's get you some warm clothes, all right?' His hands move to the bottom of Isaac's shirt without really thinking, moving to tug it off over his head. His fingers slide their way up against Isaac's sides instead, wet fabric crumpled between his fingers.

Isaac lets out a short sharp breath, and when he reopens his eyes, they glow a deep golden brown. 'I'm sorry,' Scott sputters, backing a step away. 'I didn't mean – I wasn't trying to be all up in your personal space, man.' He holds his hands up, palms out. 'Not some kind of dominance thing, I promise.' He looks up at Isaac with hesitation, the wolf smelling a confusing aggregate of an old, deep hurt mixed with fresh anger, seared like a burn. All of this, and confusion, too, rising from the Isaac's skin. Winding through it all like a thread is an unexpected tang of arousal, and overwhelmed by it, Scott crosses the room to his closet, shaking his head as if to clear it.

'I've got some old shirts in here that were always a bit big on me,' Scott throws back over his shoulder, making great steps towards pretending absolutely nothing had just happened. 'Some sweatpants, too.' He glances back to see Isaac's fists clenched at his sides, staring fixedly as the posters lining Scott's wall.

'I know it wasn't,' Isaac answers, his back still turned to Scott. 'A dominance move, or whatever. I don't care, even if was. I'm – I'm not sure if I'm really part of Derek's pack anymore.' He strings the mess of jumbled words together like they're supposed to make some kind of sense, and while Scott struggles with their meaning, the wolf happily accepts.

'Is that why you're here?' Scott asks, looking up sharply from the closet floor. 'Did that jackass kick you out?'

'I don't know,' Isaac says miserably. 'I don't know what I did wrong, I don't know why he doesn't want me anymore.' His head lowers nearly to his chest, making his voice fractionally more difficult to hear. 'If I knew, I could try to fix it, but Derek just – he just told me to get out.' Scott rises from his crouch and crosses the room, resting a hand on Isaac's sopping wet shoulder. He can feel the heat of memory riding Isaac's skin; the taste of blood and acid coating the surface like pinpoints of broken glass. 

'He threw a glass at my head,' Isaac confesses, shaking with every word, and Scott's right hand balls up into an angry fist. If Derek were here right now, they'd have to take this conversation well outside.  'I came here,' Isaac mumbles, 'because - it felt like, maybe, it was safe. That maybe' Isaac ventures, something like a laugh slipping out from his throat, his words as wet as his skin. 'Maybe I should just join your pack, instead.'

Scott moves slightly to the right, so he can see Isaac's face. 'That's a joke, right?' he asks. 'You know I don't have a pack.'

'Maybe you should,' Isaac suggests, rounding to face him. He's serious, Scott can tell, and deep down, his wolf wants to throw back its head and howl. 'You've got Stiles, and Allison, and maybe Lydia. Just because they're human doesn't make them any less yours.'

Scott understands what Isaac means, he just isn't quite ready to think of it that way. He and Stiles have been pack since long before Peter bit him in the woods, always there for one another, always making each other stronger. Lydia, he doubted, but if Allison were actually speaking more than two words to him at a time, well, Scott could see it. It was different, but it didn't actually make any less sense.

He looks up to see Isaac's eyes focused intensely on him, watching the understanding dawn across his face. 'I'm, ah, I'm just going to text my mom, ok?' Scott ventures. 'Let her know you're here?' From the look in Isaac's eyes, Scott wonders if he's even hearing him at all right now. 'You could – take a warm shower, that might help. There's spare towels in the linen closet, just out in the hall.' Isaac pauses for a moment before nodding, taking the bundle of clothes Scott offers without looking up.

'It's the first door, there, on the left,' Scott calls after him, and watches as Isaac vanishes into the bathroom. He does send his mother a text, asking permission, and Melissa responds after several minutes. _Of course it's all right. Tell Isaac he's welcome to stay anytime he likes._

Scott can hear the shower running in the bathroom and sits down on the bed, trying to figure out just what exactly had been going on a few minutes before. He liked Isaac, sure, he was a great kid, and he'd always been a good teammate. But something had changed today at the school, something Scott's not sure he's ready to deal with. He'd _known_ Isaac was in trouble, even before he'd heard Allison's heartbeat hammering in fear, and he'd been there in an instant. Protecting Allison had been no less important in his mind, he'd just focused on the least controlled element and dealt with it first. It had been pure instinct, throwing Isaac roughly to the ground and flat out _ordering_ him to be calm. No concern for his own well-being, just putting another wolf in his place.

The funny thing was, it had worked.

Scott hears the shower stop, and resolutely does not think about what Isaac looks like, standing in front of the mirror. Slipping on Scott's old concert t-shirt from when he was 13 and even a small was too large. Pulling up each leg of the thin sweatpants, worn too many times. And god, ok, maybe it wasn't the first time he'd smelled – something _different_ \- on Isaac, but more often the wolf had smelled trust and an untapped reserve of power, not unlike the way the air bends just before someone strikes a match. Isaac was a sharp edge of freshly cut metal, still warm and smoking. He was saltwater and newly tilled soil; the boy who'd cried, giving a sick, old dog comfort in its last moments.

Scott had smelled the acrid boil of and panic in the hallway, real, paralyzing fear that Isaac directed inward at himself. Touching him had felt like sliding his palm across broken glass. Scott closes his eyes, his head in his hands. It didn't matter why Isaac was here now, it only mattered that he _was_ , that he'd trusted Scott enough to come to him. He was determined to do whatever he could to help, even if that was just letting him sleep under a dry roof for the night.

The bathroom door opens, a cloud of steam billowing out, and Isaac combs through his hair with his fingers. The ancient t-shirt is a good fit, the material stretchy and loose, the logo faded years ago. 'Should I -' Isaac begins. 'Is it ok if I hang my wet clothes up in the shower to dry?' and what Scott hears is _I don't want to get in the way._

'Yeah, sure,' Scott responds, having unearthed a tank top and the pants he usually slept in, covered with Transformer logos. He didn't care if he was 18 or not, some things you just never outgrow. He turns out his desk lamp; it's late anyway, and they might as well just get some sleep. He crawls under the covers of his bed and throws the other side open for Isaac, who hesitates, staring down at the open side of the mattress.

'My mom keeps saying she's going to have this big garage sale, and the guest room is so full of boxes you can't even get in there anymore,' Scott apologises, biting his lip. 'There's a couch downstairs, though, if that would make you more comfortable. I just didn't want mom to wake you when she came home.'

'No,' Isaac murmurs, that far away, half-conscious look back in his eyes again. 'This is fine, I was just – surprised, is all.'

'What, like I was going to make you sleep on the floor or something?' Scott laughs out around a mocking scoff, but his smile dies when he meets Isaac's eyes. 'Look,' he says, pulling his phone off a shelf above his bed and pulling up his conversation with Melissa. 'My mom even says you're always welcome, all right?'

Isaac smiles slightly at that, and lies down on his side, pulling the blankets up around him. 'Thank you,' he says, his eyes watching Scott's in the darkened room. 'Not just for this, but for today. At the school. I could have really hurt someone – I could have hurt _Allison_ \- ' He breaks off, curling up around himself, and Scott finds his arm on Isaac's bicep without really knowing how it got there.

'You wouldn't have hurt her,' Scott assures him, knowing somewhere deep in his chest that it's true. 'Besides, Allison knows how to protect herself pretty well,' he says with a rueful smile. He can admit to himself than he'd sort of been hoping for a 'my hero!' moment, straight out of the movies, but even Scott McCall knows better than that. Not from Allison.

Scott smells his own scent on Isaac's borrowed clothes, feels it wafting up from beneath the blankets and not for the first time, he wonders why he can't parse it out. Everyone else's, he knows; Stiles is all ozone, the rush of wind from an oncoming storm, smears of ink and and engine grease. Lesser, but still important, still _Stiles_ , are the whiffs he catches of decaying vinyl seats, cold coffee, and strangely enough, cinnamon.

Lydia, when he focuses enough to tune in, is the the first bite of an apple, snowflakes falling from a clear sky and something a bit caustic that Scott's never been able to place. When she'd kissed him that day in the office, her mouth had been a halo of lightning, an electric bulb ready to shatter and burst. Allison – Allison is the deepness of the forest, dark woods and dry leaves trampled beneath. New leather, not yet broken in, and the crispness in the air after a cleansing rain. She's gunmetal, and wolfsbane and Scott remembers when her scent covered him, filled him, as if he didn't have a marker of his own.

Pressed so close to Isaac in the dark, Scott smells the essence he can't put a finger on. The one scent he should recognize over anyone else's, weaving itself into Isaac's distinctive mark. The smell he carries of fear, like rotting fruit, all mixed up with warm dirt between his fingers and rosemary straight off the branch. The metal edge remains, pushed down as far as Isaac can manage, but still smoking from every pore.

'I meant what I said, earlier,' Isaac says softly, just as Scott's eyes have begun to close. 'I'd be in your pack, if you'd have me.'

'I'm not an Alpha,' Scott counters.

'We seem to have a surplus of those in Beacon Hills right now,' Isaac answers. 'You might have noticed.'

'I don't want to kill anyone just to have that kind of power,' Scott insists, belatedly realising that his hand still rests on Isaac's arm just below his sleeve.

'If you didn't have it already,' Isaac rationalizes. 'You couldn't have stopped me today. It's in you,' he continues, eyes gleaming yellow in the dark. 'You just have to stop trying so hard to be a Beta.'

Scott's busy pondering those words when a realization hits him. 'Oh shit,' he mutters, and Isaac is instantly on guard. 'I forget to set my alarm.' He leans over Isaac without thinking, setting the numbers to an ungodly hour of the morning to be on time for track practice. He's a little slow to pull back, noting the way Isaac's eyes follow his movements, his senses engulfed by a swift rush of arousal. It's a deep blue flame; it's the sharp smell of smoke on the breeze. It's honey and restlessness and the deep, salt smell of skin flushing with heat.

Scott remembers holding Isaac down in that awful pool of ice, remembers the way Isaac's hand reached out and closed around his, gripping so hard it left bruises that lingered for nearly thirty minutes. Remembers the way he didn't even look at Derek, just kept his eyes on Scott's while they were open, and their skin connected while he was trying, painfully, to remember. Isaac trusts him more than anyone else, and even the human side of him understands what that bond means, or could mean.

Scott hits the button to set the clock and hesitates, leaning over Isaac for a moment too long. 'Ok,' Scott says, his voice barely above a whisper. 'This is going to be really weird, but – just give me a moment to test a theory, ok?'

Isaac looks up at him with a sly half-smile, and Scott can feel the blood rushing across his cheeks. He leans down, and Isaac bares his neck, closing his eyes while Scott focuses on something deeper than just scent marking, something well below the surface of the color-smells they all wear differently. Scott finds what he was afraid of; Isaac's an Omega now, a rogue wolf without a pack. Scott remembers watching what had happened to the last Omega in Beacon Hills, and knows with a flash of protective, angry fire that he isn't going to let that happen to Isaac.

Scott opens his mouth, not sure what's going to come out of his mouth besides curses leveled at Derek. He's slow to move back to his own side of the bed, and Isaac takes the initiative, pressing up against him and leaving a trail of soft kisses beneath Scott's jaw. The breath in Scott's lungs seizes up, and something hot begins to coil its way down from the base of his spine as he remains perfectly still. Isaac's gesture - or come on -  is as close as Scott's ever felt to anyone's submission, wolf or otherwise, and he accepts it without even thinking because the animal beneath his skin approves.

Suddenly, Scott's not sure what's going to come out of his mouth if he speaks, so he just looks down at Isaac and nods, as if certain of what it means. He watches as Isaac's entire face sinks into grateful relief. Scott rolls over and lies back down on the bed, wrapping an arm around Isaac's waist to pull him in, suddenly needing to feel Isaac's scent sinking beneath his skin, needing to know it better than his own. Isaac obliges, resting his head beneath Scott's chin, their legs tangling together beneath the sheets. It feels like a wolf thing, rather than a human dynamic, but Scott knows he's walking a fine line.

'We need to talk to Boyd,' Scott mumbles, fighting to stay awake, and Isaac lifts his head to listen. 'If Derek's disbanding his pack, there has to be a reason. Probably not a _good_ reason, but I'm sure it made sense to him at the time.'

'Have you ever considered that maybe Derek's just a dick?' Isaac questions, the softness in his tone rounding off the edges of the words.

'Yeah,' Scott answers with a small laugh. 'Plenty of times. But I know when he's in trouble, he pushes everyone away instead of asking for help.'

Isaac nods, granting that Scott's logic is sound. 'We can find Boyd at school, if we can manage to ditch the twins for five minutes.'

'Somehow I think that's going to be more difficult,' Scott mumbles with a grimace. 'That's tomorrow, though. Right now, let's just – just sleep, ok?'

Isaac nods, his nose sliding up and down Scott's neck, and he wants to do something unbelievably stupid. Scott knows he's made mistakes, you could fill a book with them, but he doesn't want this to be another entry under Colossally Bad Ideas. Isaac's warm, and he smells so good, he smells like home and pack, and Scott doesn't even realise he's been running his hand up and down Isaac's spine. He tangles his fingers in Isaac's hair, and Isaac presses a real kiss to the base of Scott's neck, one scent now overriding all others in the room, and he gives into it.

Scott tilts his head and pulls Isaac's chin up, hoping that kissing guys works the same way as kissing girls, because before Allison, he'd never had any experience with either. Isaac's lips are soft, if a bit chapped, and there's no taste of lipstick to get in the way. It's slow as Scott tries to find the right angle, tries to fit them together, but Isaac seems to know what he's doing and before long, that hesitant first brush of lips has gone a lot further down the road. Isaac's mouth opens when Scott's hand brushes against his cheek, and Scott's tongue slips inside, tasting rosemary and mint and the tiniest bit of cedar wood. Scott wonders what he tastes like, but whatever it is, Isaac isn't complaining.

Scott loses track of time, Isaac's arm across his waist, his hand curving behind Scott's neck. Scott can feel the tension and fear draining from Isaac and evaporating into the air, his arms slung loose but comfortably around Isaac's neck. He pulls back, which takes more work than Scott really thinks it should, and kisses along Isaac's jawline, licking the skin just beneath his ear. Isaac makes the most wonderful noises, and his hand slides around from the small of Scott's back to pull his hips in closer. It shouldn't be a surprise when Scott feels just how much Isaac wants him, but it is, the evidence of it pressed against the hollow of his hip. Scott moves gently against him, Isaac's breathing short and sharp, and he buries his face in the crook of Scott's neck. Isaac pushes back, his hips moving slowly up and forward, nails digging into Scott's skin where they grip him tight.

It still feels like a different kind of bonding, and maybe it is, Scott thinks through the haze of the wolf's desire to claim and control, and his own want, strange and new, but 100% human. Isaac's hips thrust harder and faster against him, and Scott lets out the sound that's been building in his throat since he kissed him. Isaac turns his head sideways, kidding Scott's neck, his throat, tugging on one earlobe with his teeth and gently biting down. Scott's fingers wind through Isaac's hair, his other hand slipping beneath his t-shirt at the waist, just to feel the warmth of his skin.

Scott leans against him, pushing Isaac over until his back hits the mattress, and returns the kisses, his hips nearly losing their rhythm to the buildup of desire. Isaac gets his hands underneath Scott's tank top, running his fingers down Scott's chest and sides. Isaac's head falls back against the pillow, Scott's mouth still working down his throat when Scott's hip presses just right against him and the release floods through every part of his body.

Isaac continues thrusting up against Scott for another thirty seconds, surely no longer, before the power of Isaac's absolute trust overwhelms him. There they are, Isaac's throat bared to him, as vulnerable a position as a as a wolf can claim, yet finding both release and security in that submission. It hits Scott in the gut, the flush of acknowledgment traveling lower, and he falls over the edge. He doesn't remember pinning Isaac down against the bed, but he also doesn't remember any complaints. Scott presses his sweaty forehead to Isaac's, warm and tender, moving one hand from his arm to gently run a finger down Isaac's cheek. Scott's more exhausted than he's been in ages, as if such a simple thing had drawn more out of him than just sweat and the wetness pooling in his boxers.

He holds Isaac close, the wolf demanding contact until Isaac give a soft, slightly hysterical laugh. 'Maybe I could, ah, borrow a pair of boxers instead?' he asks, his mouth pressed against Scott's ear, and the laughter is infectious. Scott finally manages to pull his hands from Isaac's skin and gets up, fumbling around in his closet for two new pair and tossing one to Isaac. Scott's cleaning up a bit in the bathroom when he hears his mother come home for the night, and he wads up his shorts and pants, tossing them in his hamper after scurrying across the hall.

Isaac's stretched out beneath the blankets once again, and Scott can see his worn old sweatpants dangling from the hamper as well. He wonders for a terrifying moment if they're going to need to have a _talk_ , especially with his mother likely to head toward her bedroom at any moment, but thankfully Isaac just snuggles up against him when he gets back in bed.

Scott wraps his arms around Isaac from behind, lips pressed to the back of his neck, and when he feels the change, it's as if the entire world shifts beneath them. His scent mingles with Isaac's and for the first time, he can identify it by how much it _isn't_ Isaac's unique mark. The embers of a slow burning fire in autumn, the tang in the air when lightning strikes. The simple, straightforward scent that rises from wet grass on a hot summer evening. There's something else there too, something that doesn't belong only to him, and Scott eventually recognises the scent of a Beta – _his_ Beta.

The tattoo on his arm burns, sudden and fierce, and although Scott can't see any change, it feels as if a third ring now occupies space above the other two. Whatever it is, he doesn't think he'll be asking Derek about it. The wolf curls up, hot and protective around Isaac and Scott slides his hand beneath Isaac's shirt, resting his palm against warm, damp skin. _Mine_ , the wolf growls, and Scott agrees, listening to Isaac's steady breathing as he finally drifts off to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
